Antaeus (physician)

Antaeus (Ancient Greek: Ἀνταῖος) or Anthaeus (Ἀνθαῖος) was a physician of ancient Greece, whose outlandish remedy for rabies is mentioned by Pliny the Elder,^[1] and consisted of deriving a potion from the skull of a hanged man.^[2][3] One of his prescriptions is preserved by Galen.^[4] Nothing is known of the events of his life, but, as Pliny mentions him, he must have lived some time in or before the first century CE.

Notes

1. Pliny the Elder, Natural History xxviii. 2
2. Barrett, Alan D.T.; Stanberry, Lawrence R. (2009). Vaccines for Biodefense and Emerging and Neglected Diseases. Academic Press. p. 612. ISBN 9780080919027. Retrieved 2016-01-08.
3. King, Arthur A. (2004). Historical perspective of rabies in Europe and the Mediterranean Basin. World Organisation for Animal Health. p. 4. ISBN 9789290446392. Retrieved 2016-01-08.
4. Galen, De Compositione Medicamentorum Secundum Locus iv. 8. vol. xii. p. 764

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: William Alexander Greenhill (1870). "Anthaeus". In Smith, William. Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology 1. p. 183.